It's too good for VIA Nano to be true. :) And the tests confirm that. ttp://www.umpcportal.com/2008/07/via-nano-info-and-test-reveals-umpc-friendly-products-atom-like-performance/Maybe the matter of fact is that video playback is traditionally well-accelerated on VIA's chipsets.

this is some kind of bullsh.. there are videos showing 720p and 1080p playing just fine on atom they are cheating http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5pU_Z9ybm4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atmc0Hq41iA&feature=related

No, it's not so kind. :) Another video from that author shows that 1080p playback on 1000H in Standard mode have almost the same lags as in VIA movie. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIwIanaLiKIIn the movie from your first link 901 and 1000H was in overclocked 1.8GHz mode, and the difference is just great(look like on 2.0GHz 1080p will work flawlessly).

First, what's the point in running a Full HD video not using the most efficient (best quality/size ratio) codec - H.264 ?

Wmv might use less CPU, but why 1080p on a small screen?.I can play DVD quality H.264 with AC3 5.1 audio in my Linux based Atom. And it boots in 15 seconds.

Wmv is a step backwards on codec efficiency, and it is being pushed while small hardware cant play HD content, but wherever there is a big enough screen worth playing 1080p contend, there is also enough space to use a decent H.264 decoding solution.

watching the via video, then watching jkk's video made me laugh, I hope that guy isnt an official guy from via, or i just lost all respect in them. They probably used eeectl to downclock the 901 to like 300 mhz.

JKK, you tested with a 901, that is with SSD. The video shows a 1000H, so with HDD.

I don't think it is enough to make the difference and I agree with you that this video is certainly bullshit, but... ?

Let's hope that VIA says something about this video and your response, because for now we all think that VIA is a company that needs to falsely promote its product... So sad, I have great hopes for VIA!

JKK, can you confirm that you played the video on your 901 with the AC plugged in?

And, if it is the case, could you try running on batteries?

It seems that playing HD content is fine with the AC plugged in, but some people got the same result as in VIA's video running on batteries. (because the computer then switches from "performance mode" to "power saving mode")

It would be very kind of you and would keep (a very few) honor to VIA...

I just came across your debunking video via Engadget. It's almost unbelievable that a manufacturer like VIA would try a silly marketing stunt like that. But a good job on holding VIA's marketing department to account for their bullshit.

Guys this is no bullshitting at all. Use the same mediaplayer as they did and you will see the result!Everything is fine with the testing environment and this clip. The Atom just can't deal with the most recent version of the Windows Media Player.720 works fine, even with the WMP 11 but at 1080p it stutters like hell.

I tried it on my 1000H and Aspire One now... All with the same result.

I'm the guy in the video and I thought maybe I could send you a response as opposed to try and go around commenting everywhere and maybe address some of the questions people may have had.

First off I'd like to say... Wow! We had no idea how popular or inciting this video was going to be.... and I'd like to say we certainly weren't trying to tell people how to watch video, or on what type of device to watch video on, or in what resolution. Also its great to see people so passionate about their mini-notes and the Asus EeePC! The relatively new mini-note category is important to VIA so we're really surprised and very impressed by the passionate interest.

In fact recently we had just done a round of independent 3rd party benchmarking tests which were really positive for the VIA Nano and we wanted to find a way for people who don't read benchmarks or visit those kinds of site a way to visually see the performance difference between our CPU and our competitors CPU. Its very difficult to isolate CPU performance on products as you know although some independent 3rd party benchmark reviews can be found here:

So video performance is a "visual" way to show off our performance. We chose a 1080p HD video to really stress the compared CPUs and we chose a VIA OpenBook prototype to plop a VIA Nano 1.3HGz processor into because its the closest thing we have to a comparable product at the moment that we are allowed to talk about (although that will change soon!). The prototype we used nicely demoed our pin for pin upgrade compatibility for our processors but is in no way was it optimized to run the VIA Nano processor the way our customers products will be when they are launched. So our customers VIA Nano based products in fact should have even better performance.

Presently of course we have no way to do an exact apples for apples comparison (and to satisfy everyone I don't think there ever will be since so many other platform factors come into play) but we thought we'd take another mini-note using our competitors highest CPU sku (Intel Atom 1.6GHz) and play them side by side so people could see the difference for themselves. In this case, because we had one on hand, we used the Asus EeePC 1000H. Both machines in the test ran with 1GHz of ram, and both use 2.5" SATA hard drives.

We purposely chose one of our lower sku VIA Nano 1.3GHz processor's to compare against Intel's highest sku to not only show its great performance but to help simplify people's questions about power consumption. Power consumption is something experts seldom agree on and your average consumer has very little idea about in terms of what it means to them in terms of overall power consumption or battery life, or their power bill. I would be very willing to discuss in an interview with you this subject if you thought people would be interested in how VIA approaches these issues. We're very convinced that our Nano power consumption is more than competitive to the Atom and we'd love to go into the lengthy discussion about how we see that.

I saw some 901 test result videos added to your sites which use SSD drive and I believe also a Celeron CPU, it looks like the results may have been different. For this reason we tried to show in the graphics in the video and the title of our video that we were comparing CPUs. In fact this whole video controversy highlights the platform differences between VIA and Intel... on another day I would also love to do an interview with you regarding that very subject!

We chose a 1080p HD video as I mentioned to stress the CPUs, but in fact depending on other factors such a bit rate for example, performance results can widely vary for HD videos. So the best we could do is have both machines run the same video. Yes 720p videos can be played by different CPUs, its just not the video we chose for our comparison, which people can download and run for themselves here:http://download.microsoft.com/download/4/1/b/41b10a4f-f4f4-4692-aa44-a458d0047e91/Robotica_1080.exe

I think a lot of the comments you can see people talking about how to properly tune your 1000H so it can play HD video. Our thinking process was... lets do this while running on batteries. The beauty of these mini-note product category is their mobility and most of us internally at VIA were thinking.. If I'm in a place where I could be plugged in (maybe at home) I'll probably watch 1080p HD video on a different device... like my HD TV. So to be fair in as much of a like for like comparison we ran both devices on batteries in "auto mode" that way the processors have the option to scale up their performance to meet the task if they need to. I don't know why but the Atom didn't when we ran our video.

As to the video style... the music, the use of quotes from Intel. Well we did intend for the video to be a little dramatic and set a " product for product challenge" type of tone and we did want to show our philosophy about our product. For VIA the VIA Nano is a very important product, our confidence in our product and marketing approach certainly needs to reflect that. Sadly we don't have a 300 million dollar marketing budget or control over our customer/partners to drive our product into the hearts and minds of consumers. So this is one of the approaches we are taking.

I don't know Paul Otellini personally so I can only get Intel's philosophy on their products from the public face they put on it. So to show our different corporate philosophies to both companies products I took those Intel quotes used in our video from a July 15th CNET article: "Intel CEO on Atom chip shortage, flash problems" -http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-9992309-64.html

Intel predicts its shortages will end around the same time VIA Nano based products hit the market so I think its relevant for VIA to show this kind of performance video now so consumers can make better educated when products are readily available. I realize some Atom based products are available now of course.

...In the end what really matters is the consumer experience on devices and we're getting really close to a point where people will be able experience VIA Nano based devices of all sorts and see for themselves. In the meantime I'm open for dialogue and speaking to the community, as well as educating about our products.

"we ran both on battery, i dont know why the intel didn't step up to perform better"

it was on battery savings, not auto battery savings. He knew how to tune the via to do what he wanted.. he just assumed the intel would be the same.

But yea, if this is cheap, and 1.3ghz is the lower model.. and the higher models have competitive energy savings features.. this processor may be good. The mini note is a really nice netbook... too expensive though. This would be nice in some smaller umpcs though.. if the price is right.

"Our thinking process was... lets do this while running on batteries."

and of course

"The prototype we used nicely demoed our pin for pin upgrade compatibility for our processors but is in no way was it optimized to run the VIA Nano processor the way our customers products will be when they are launched."

They want to stress test the CPU using a 1080p HD video, even though the platform isn't particular suited for the task, and they decide to run it on batteries, knowing full well that the Eee and most other laptops run slower on batteries, using the Nano on a platform that isn't optimized for the Nano - meaning doesn't include any powersaving features.

I seriously do not hope this guy is an engineer or anything more than a marketing guy (who are for the most part liars anyway).

VIA needs to get crackin on the Pico boards...sadly when i emailed them they stated there were no plans to make a higher mhz fanless than the current 500mhz they're using...but that will have to eventually change...they have fanless 800 and 1.0 on the Nano boards :/

The VIA Nano seems to be a promising product. Getting some more capable and competing products on the marketplace is all good for the consumer! That proposed interview about power consumption would be a nice read. While I have never owned a portable VIA device and I'm getting my second Eee (Atom-based) very soon, I cetainly wouldn't rule out any worthy competitors because of relatively small gaffes such as this.

Ok I have just uploaded a Video with the 900 Celeron processor, playing both 720 and 1080 HD video in Media Player 11 and Media Player Classic. The results where that the 1080 HD video played better in Media Player Classic and the strange thing was that they were using the same Codecs. Anyone give a try under Xandros Os to see if it plays better?

via use windows media player 11 in this test. thats why the 1000h/atom sucks. same video whit media player 9, 10 & classic will run smooth on the 1000h/atom. so it has nothing to do whit the battery mode.

"We purposely chose one of our lower sku VIA Nano 1.3GHz processor's to compare against Intel's highest sku to not only show its great performance but to help simplify people's questions about power consumption."

No the reason you chose the 1.3GHz is because it is the fastest nano processor that fits within the thermal specifications of the openbook/netbook. The faster nanos run too hot to be used in a netbook. You had no choice but to use a slower nano CPU.

I have another issue with these tests. Who would honestly prefer this codec (WMV9 HD) over another codec (H.264/AVC etc)??Wouldn't the way things are playing out, the h264 codec will be the common standard by which popular media will be encoded in?

You proved, that the 1.6 ghz atom is comparabele to 1.2 ghz Nano in video play.(In the original video the two videos were not the same)But the single core Nano is still superior to sigle core Atom in computing power, and the nanos platform idle Power consumption is lower than atoms platforms one.

I actually tried running the same video on acer aspire 751h..(intel atom z520) When I am using windows media player 11, the result is the same like this test. But when I am using media player classic-included in k lite codec pack it goes great-smooth

Atom at 1.6ghz can actually play 1080p h264.. but the audio-video is so out of sync it's worthless. Plus most netbooks actually have a VGA maximum of 1680×1050 so even if you have a full-HD monitor with a VGA port, you won't be able to see 1080p at its full resolution